>> Nor I do believe that giardia necessarily need to die.
>> A healthy gut is one that can coexist with giardia, I guess, as those of
our
>> ancestors most likely did, I suppose.
>Yep, and our ancestors lived to a grand old age of about 45. Clean water
>makes a differance.
Cut down in their prime by the infamous sabre-toothed amoeba, no doubt.
Giardia happens. If the definition of clean water is water untouched by the
hand of man, then clean water is and always has been synonymous with giardia
water. Giardia water is therefore natural water. Conversely, modern day tap
water in all its sterility (laden with chemicals) is giardia-free and, in
essence, unnatural. (Let's use the term "giardia" here as a catch-all for
waterborne micro-organisms.) Likewise, backcountry water that has been
treated to remove or disable giardia is unnatural. And so it follows that
people who drink only tap water and treat all of their backcountry water
have "unnatural" digestive systems. Now, take an unnatural digestive system
and give it a sudden dose of nature, and it may balk. It could be a
voluminous chug of untreated water, or even just a few cysts o' giardia that
crept through the filter mechanism; whatever the case, the unnatural gut
allows the giardia to proliferate unchecked or whatever, and the person
becomes sick.
Now, the above diatribe takes us from an irresistably logical premise to an
overgeneralized conclusion, all with absolutely no science to back it up.
That said, it feels right to me and so I'm going with it. And we'll leave it
up to each bright hiking scholar on this list to decide for herself whether
she needs to treat her backcountry water and how best to discontinue
treating that water if so desired.
- blisterfree the vague (highly adapted)